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The blue eyes peeking out above the scarf were glinting. “They can take the Queen’s money,” he spat. “But they don’t accept the Queen’s flag. This is part of Great Britain, this flag is our culture, if they don’t like it they can f*** off back to Dublin.”

A teenager grunted in support. “We are not stopping until that flag goes back up. They have chipped away at us enough. No surrender.”

These are the uncompromising youths clustering at the front line of Northern Ireland’s biggest crisis in years. But sprinkled among the paramilitaries-in-waiting — and the shadowy older males directing